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Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Don't Fight Dirty: 4 Tips for Keeping
Arguments Squeaky Clean

When we're angry, it's all too easy to slip intobad habits and dirty fighting tactics . Ourvoices rise, our tempters heat, and thename-calling and worse can begin. Weknow we're not doing anything but makingan already uncomfortable situation worse, but in theheat of a fight, it's not always easy to step back and takea turn for the high road. So, to help us all out—because Iam guilty of these too!—I've identified four dirty fightingtactics and how we can work to avoid them during ournext disagreements.

Overgeneralizing: Your guy never picks up after himself,and he's always late. While it may feel as if he hasn'tfolded a single shirt in an entire year, that's likely not thecase—and making the statement as if it's gospel truthwill only sting him and exaggerate the issue at hand.Instead, zero in on what's bothering you now, and doyour best to concisely explain why. Then work togetherto find a solution so you won't be tempted to think, herehe goes again. For example, "I know it's just fiveminutes, but when you're late, I feel like what we're gotplanned isn't important to you. Can we work this out sothat next time, you can make our date on time?"

Blaming him: If it weren't for him, you wouldn't havefound yourselves in this ugly little situation. It's his faultand you are the blameless victim, hurt by his callousactions alone. Maybe this is true once in a blue moon—but generally, the rule of thumb is that it takes two toargue. As a control freak, I happen to love spinning thisdirty fighting tactic around. After all, if it's all his fault,what can you do to change the situation? But if you'rewilling to focus on yourself, admit out loud how youcontributed to the problem, and offer up a way to fix it,you're already halfway back to better. And I promise you,with this kind of humility and willingness to takeresponsibility, your S.O. will soon follow suit

Engaging in a complaint war: Let's ignore the fact that Idid indeed belittle you, dear, and instead focus on howyou forgot to pick me up last week. Whatever he's got tosay, you've got a (likely unrelated) complaint to throwback his way. But you can't advance the conversation orsolve a problem if you only answer his concerns withthose of your own. Rather than hurling back what he'sdone wrong, take a deep breath and force yourself tofocus on what he just said. Repeat it to yourself, try tounderstand it, and if you can't, ask him to explain. He'llfeel heard and you'll feel better in moments when yourealize you haven't escalated the situation.

Labeling or name-calling: He's just so childish. Andselfish. And crazy! Because no mature, caring, saneperson would behave the way he has. When your feelingsare hurt or you otherwise feel misunderstood or uncaredfor, it's natural to assign labels to the one who's hurtyou. And while what your S.O. did or said very well mayhave been childish, selfish, or crazy, he is likely notthose things. Stick to talking about the action or wordswithout assigning a characteristic to him. So rather thanspitting out, "You're so selfish," try, "When you didn'task what I wanted to do tonight, it felt like you didn’tcare about my opinion. Is that the case?" Hopefully, he'llrealize what he thought was a harmless action hadhurtful effects, and he'll consider your opinions nexttime.

Do you have any tips for how to keep a fight from gettingdirty? Or, if you find it hard to keep arguments clean,which dirty fighting tactic do you struggle with most?